


Valor Returns

by KaramelHaven



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, KaraMel, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Reunion, supergirl - Freeform, valor - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-04 16:43:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10994889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaramelHaven/pseuds/KaramelHaven
Summary: Kara hasn't been coping well with the departure of Mon-El and when an alien threat says the WRONG thing to her, Kara snaps. But anger has always been something that gets the best of her, and she is blinded to the fact there are TWO aliens there to face off against. When they get the upperhand and Supergirl seems on the verge of being defeated, who can save her?Valor. That's who.A Karamel Reunion fic.(Seriously, someone needs to stop me. This is getting ridiculous. I just want to write my two multi-chapter stories but these reunion fics just keep popping out of the woodwork!)





	Valor Returns

**Author's Note:**

> I already wrote one reunion fic, where Mon-El returns in a pod. And, for some reason, it just spawned another reunion fic where Mon-El returns in full Valor glory. Unbetaed and un-proofread but I hope you enjoy!

It shouldn’t be refreshing to feel rage. 

Rage, anger, hate, they were all emotions Kara loathed to feel. They always left her with a sensation of being dirty, like they had tainted herself, made her less than a superhero. Even when she faced her worst enemies, she tried to keep those feelings low, force them down. She hated who she was after the feelings had passed, hated everything she did while feeling them. It was one reason she had reacted so strongly after her bout with Red-K. Those feelings left her guilt-ridden and feeling awful.

But now, as she stood in the middle of National City, mercilessly slamming her fist into the face of an alien threat, she thrived on those feelings.

They hit her so strong they nearly sent her reeling back at how suddenly they’d come about. 

All she knew was that she’d been standing opposed to the latest threat, the alien, which resembled a humanoid-slug, had been belittling her and taunting her. She hadn’t cared. And she didn’t say that in a humble way, that she was merely able to ignore his jeers or that she was being the bigger person. She said that in a sense…she couldn’t muster the emotion to care about what he said. 

He had regaled her with remarks of watching Krypton destroy itself. She barely flinched.

He had called her a disappointment and how her parents would be ashamed of her for landing on Earth and not conquering it like a god. She didn’t blink.

He had threatened to hunt down each and every person she held dear after he’d finished with her and kill them before her eyes. She didn’t even tense.

That last one was just so unlikely, but still.

He had even gone so far as to call her out for her failure as a hero, gesturing around at the havoc and destruction he’d been able to cause before she’d arrived, as though it were proof he had the upperhand. She didn’t even consider glancing at the fires and rubble around her.

His words meant nothing to her. It wasn’t even that they washed over her and didn’t affect her, it was just…try as she might, the words barely pierced her skin. 

She felt like her skin had become even more invulnerable as of late. Metaphorically.

She couldn’t usually feel it when humans touched her, she had to concentrate just to notice if someone tapped her on the back. A hug, even a bear hug, from a muscle man barely affected her on a normal day. But for the last few weeks, it had gotten so much worse. She couldn’t normally feel a touch, but she’d realized, somewhere along the line, she didn’t WANT the touches either.

She didn’t want Alex to hug her. She didn’t want Winn to high-five her. She didn’t want James to pat her on the back. She didn’t want Eliza to hold her hand. She didn’t want J’onn to squeeze her shoulder. She didn’t want any of it.

What was the point when she couldn’t feel it anyway? It was a waste, a waste of their time and a waste of her energy to pretend like she felt it and like it reassured her, like it was a comfort or in any way made her feel better. 

It made her feel worse. All of it. Everything around her made her feel worse and worse. It made her feel more numb with each passing day.

She didn’t want her family to touch her anymore. She couldn’t feel their touch. 

Not like…

Not like with Mon-El. 

She felt every single one of his touches. From his lightest kiss to his most encompassing hug. And it had been wonderful to feel it. After going so many years of her life unable to feel the touch of those around her but needing to ACT like she did? She doubted the humans even realized she couldn’t feel them. But she knew. She was reminded each time they tried to help how little it did. Because they weren’t Mon-El. She had had that, for one brief moment in her life, she’d had touch back, and she had thrived on it, lived for it. She had never been as touchy feely and unconcerned with personal space as she was when Mon-El was around. And she WANTED it. She’d adored it, relished in it, and returned it with everything she had.

But he was gone. He was gone and so was his comforting touch.

She was back in that steel bubble where nothing could penetrate her skin.

Clark could touch her, give her a comforting hug, if he were there. But she knew, even if he was, she’d shy away from him. Because he wasn’t Mon-El. She didn’t WANT her cousin to touch her or offer her any comfort even a hug. It was just going to be a reminder that it wasn’t Mon-El.

She had never realized just what she had till it was gone. On Krypton, touching wasn’t as big a thing in families as it was on Earth. She had been too young to really notice. And to grow up with humans, she had put so much effort into fooling them, she almost got used to it. And then Mon-El appeared, and she had that back, something she never knew she needed. And it was ripped away from her.

She felt like her skin had truly become steel now. And she just didn’t care enough to pretend anymore. Her friends had noticed the shift in her, she was sure. But she was just so tired of making them feel better, feel like they were helping, when they weren’t, when their efforts just made it hurt worse.

It had evolved since then. She hadn’t realized it till the moment her fist contacted with the slug-man’s face. It wasn’t just her skin that felt impenetrable, it was everything else.

Jokes didn’t strike her funny anymore. Kitten videos didn’t make her smile. Food didn’t taste as delicious. The yellow sun didn’t give her enough energy. Seeing people in pain didn’t break her heart as much. Facing alien threats didn’t provide that smidgen of fear she usually felt but kept hidden. J’onn’s disappointment didn’t hit her as hard. Alex’s concern didn’t make her give in. 

She woke up. She went to CatCo. She went to the DEO. She fought a threat. She went home. She slept.

Repeat and repeat and repeat.

Some days she had to force herself out of bed. CatCo was STILL talking about the Daxamite Invasion. Lena was suing her mother for claiming CADMUS saved the day and it was all anyone was talking about. She dreaded work. She…she hated going there. She hated talking about it and hearing people talk about it. But she hated just staying in her loft all day. 

Mon-El’s books were still on the table where he’d left them. He’d bookmarked the last page of Harry Potter he’d been working through. She’d seen a note in the margins (which would have infuriated her to see him writing in her favorite book, but now she would give anything for him to be there and would be willing to shove a highlighter in his hand to mark up every single page if he wanted to). He’d been assigning Hogwarts Houses to all of them.

She had been a Gryffindor. Winn a Ravenclaw. Alex a Slytherin (with a note that she was just cunning and scary for the reason). He hadn’t gotten to J’onn and James yet.

He’d written himself in there. Had started with Gryffindor, but scribbled it out with a note that he wasn’t brave. Then he’d written Slytherin, but crossed it out with a note that he didn’t want to be “evil” anymore. And didn’t that just break her heart and make her think about her cruel words to him when he first got to Earth and expressed a disinterest in being a hero. 

But if she thought that hurt, his final note about his House had ten times more. He’d just jotted down he wouldn’t have a house. There was no way he’d be accepted at Hogwarts.

She’d gone out and bought a Halloween costume of a Hufflepuff house for him. Just because. Because he WAS Hufflepuff. Loyal and faithful and true. 

His books were still there. Her TV account was paused in the middle of a musical they’d started to watch but had to cut short for DEO business. He’d never seen the end of it. 

He’d have hated it.

Just like he hated the ending of Romeo and Juliet. West Side Story hadn’t been the best follow up, but he’d hoped that, because it was a movie adaptation (and Winn SWORE they were always terrible and not-true to the book) it might have a happier ending. She was almost glad he hadn’t seen it.

She’d watched it and started sobbing. Because it was them. It was so close to being them. Star-crossed lovers separated by the death of the male character (or the threat of death for them).

She may have burned her copy of Romeo and Juliet with her heat vision too.

His clothes were still there, scattered around her apartment, in her dressers and her closet. His pillow smelled like him. His apron hanging on a hook in the kitchen. A cookbook dog-eared with a dinner he wanted to cook for her. 

Her loft reminded her of him. 

She couldn’t bear to be there unless it was to sleep. She could only sleep with his pillow pressed to her face or his shirt draped across it. In her dreams she could almost pretend he was there. But she never wanted to leave those dreams, which made getting up for work nearly impossible.

And then to go to work and hear nothing but the invasion and the horrible talk of the Daxamites…reminding her again of how she’d treated him and all the regret she held. She would leave the second her day was done and go to the DEO, needing a distraction.

But even being there tormented her. That was where they’d taken him when he landed. It was where he’d lived before he’d all but moved in with her. It was where he’d told them to use the Lead Gas if need be. It was the place that had once had the cannon that could have ended it all if she’d not tried to save the unsavable Rhea.

It was the place she’d trained him to be a hero.

And being a hero was what took him from her.

Both her being one and him being one as well.

So she would take the first threat that came up, whether it was a mere bank robbery or a hostile alien. She would fly out there after getting the bare minimum of information and see the threat handled.

She hadn’t realized till the slug-man went flying backwards, leaving a trail of slime on the ground, how her ways of handling a threat had changed.

She didn’t give them time to defend or explain themselves. She went in, she stopped them, she apprehended them, she took them to containment. End of. No talking, no bantering, no heroic speeches. Nothing. In and out. Get the job done. Talking was what cost her Mon-El. If they talked, she didn’t listen, just went for the offense and stopped them.

She hadn’t realized till she heard the DEO’s back up team ushering the civilians away from the area that there even were still civilians there. 

She should have been more concerned. But when she tried to muster it, it feel flat in her chest.

When the slug-man had taunted her about how she had failed to save the Daxamite Prince…she had snapped.

It didn’t take much for word to spread among Aliens. With Mon-El being at M’gann’s bar, with the few aliens there that knew her and Mon-El were together, aliens knew who he was and that he was dating “Kara Danvers” who was a friend of Supergirl’s. 

The slug-man had said it to trip her up in how she’d failed to help her friend.

He had not expected the complete and utter fury his words evoked as she went flying at him and punched him so hard she may have actually killed him before she’d even realized she moved. She had held back, some small part of her reminding her that just because she couldn’t feel the touch of others didn’t mean it was the same for them and her touch. But she hadn’t stopped either. She’d flown right after the slug-man and just…punched him, and punched him, and punched him, over and over.

Someone was making growling and screaming noises and she only realized after slime started to get on her hand that it was her.

“Supergirl!” she could vaguely hear Alex shouting behind her, but she just kept punching the slug.

How DARE he speak of Mon-El? How dare he say it was her fault? How dare he blame her for his departure? How dare he reminder her that he was right and she had failed? How dare he?

“Supergirl watch out!” 

Kara couldn’t even turn at the shout before something slammed into her and sent her flying off the now unmoving (hopefully just unconscious) slug-man. 

She held up her hands a split second before a green goo she’d seen flying at her face hit her, covering her arms in it. She screamed as she felt a stinging pain radiating from her forearms and quickly shoved the thing on top of her off. She scrambled to her feet and looked at her hands, seeing them covered in a glowing green goo. She wiped it off on her skirt quickly, but her stomach clenched, her entire being feeling woozy and off balance.

She looked up in time to see a second slug-man (woman?) getting to its feet. It hissed at her and spat more of the goo, but Kara jumped back…only to stumble to her knees, wheezing now, the world spinning around her.

The slug-creature raced towards her and she held up a hand to try and stop the attack…when a blur of red and blue flew past her, knocking it back.

She squinted, the world blurry now, black dots appearing on her vision. 

The blur walked up to her, it said something but her ears were ringing and she couldn’t make out what was said. 

She felt herself falling to the side, about to hit the ground when the blur caught her and lifted her up into its arms. Her last conscious thought was the comforting smell filling her nose before the world went black.

******************************************************************************************************************************************

A steady beeping noise as the first thing Kara heard as she slowly came to, her eyes fluttering open to see the medical room of the DEO around her.

“Kara!”

Kara could only manage to roll her head to the side to look at Alex as she rushed over, but she could feel the yellow-sun-bed she was lying on doing its job and restoring her power.

“What happened?” she asked, her voice hoarse for more than just being weak. 

She hadn’t talked much the last few weeks either. Snapper was very happy about that (though he did seem more than a little disturbed by her lack of fire and arguing). 

“You went head to head with two aliens,” Alex reminded her. “They were close enough to Krypton when it was destroyed to get their hands on Kyrptonite. Their bodies let them absorb it and bind it to their…um…mucus…” Alex grimaced at the thought. “They sort of…spat it at you and you were contaminated with Green Kryptonite. Sapped your strength.”

Kara nodded, that was coming back to her. She sat up on the sun bed, carefully pulling the electronic monitors off her as the rest of the events played out. “Was Kal there?”

Alex stilled.

Kara frowned. “There was someone else. They saved me.”

“Yes,” Alex began slowly, her gaze flickering to the door. “Someone did.”

“Who?” Kara asked, clearly it wasn’t Clark or Alex wouldn’t be acting so odd.

“You’re never going to believe it.”

“Alex, who…”

Kara’s words were cut off when she heard footsteps approaching, her heart skipping a beat in her chest as her mind played tricks on her. They were NOT familiar footsteps. She had to tell herself that. She did NOT recognize the gait and pattern of it. Because if she did…then it meant the person approaching was…

“Mon-El?” Kara breathed, half staring and half gaping at the man in the doorway.

It was Mon-El!

…but it wasn’t.

Everything about him screamed Mon-El, he had the same smile, same grey eyes, same nose and face and jaw and everything…

But there was so much more. 

He was wearing a supersuit. It was like someone had inverted hers and Clark’s colors, with Mon-El’s being red with blue accents and a blue cape. He stood taller, more confident, but more sure and relaxed. He was wider too, the suit doing nothing to hide the variety of muscles he’d developed since the last time she’d seen him.

She swallowed hard, feeling a heat pool in her lower stomach at the sight of him, his muscles, in such a tight…tight…suit. 

She had to use every ounce of willpower to pull her thoughts from going down that route and remind herself there was something far more important. (She swore though, for the first time she understood what Ms. Grant had been talking about with Clark and some kind of meditation that made all problems and cares wash away for a moment.)

Mon-El was standing there.

On Earth.

Whose atmosphere was still infused with lead.

And he was breathing easily.

And smiling…at her.

“Kara,” his voice sounded deeper than she remembered, but no less light. The way he said her name, like a caress, made the butterflies that she’d thought died in her stomach come back to life with a vengeance and mutate into super-butterflies. He spoke her name like it was the answer to every prayer and question he’d ever had in his life. 

She couldn’t help but shiver at the sound of it.

“How…but you…the lead…”

“He’s fine,” Alex rushed to reassure her sister, glancing between the two Supers who couldn’t seem to pull their gazes from each other to even give her attention as she spoke, not that she blamed them. She might have realized she preferred girls to boys, but even she could admit Mon-El looked damn fine in that suit. “Kara, he hasn’t shown any sign of reacting to the lead allergy since he saved you.”

“YOU saved me?” Kara’s gaze traced over his suit, the blur in her memories making sense. Her gaze froze on the House of El glyph patterned over his heart, her gaze drifting to a chain around his neck, a necklace tucked under his suit and she KNEW it was the one she'd given him. He had clearly changed, in quite a few ways, but he hadn't forgotten her, he'd kept her with him, just like she did him.

A small voice in her head was telling her to get over there and “thank” him properly for his show of heroics. 

She shoved it aside for now. She honestly wasn’t sure she could move yet, she was so shocked and overwhelmed.

Mon-El grinned at her, his smile so achingly familiar Kara’s heart started to race…prompting her to quickly rip that particular monitor off her chest when Mon-El’s gaze flickered away from hers and to the monitor. She wanted his focus on her, she needed it after so long dreaming of his eyes gazing into hers.

“I promised you I would be the man you thought I could be, a true hero,” he reminded her and she could hear the heartbreaking emotion in his voice as he recalled what was clearly a painful moment for the both of them. “I needed to show you I’d kept it.”

Kara wanted to remark that he didn’t need to prove anything to her, that she always knew he could be a hero, that he already was, that he’d already proved it in little things he did right from the start. But all that came out was, “But the lead…”

“It won’t hurt me anymore,” Mon-El reassured her. 

“How…I don’t…”

“I was in your ship,” he began to explain, “And a wormhole opened up and sucked me in. It took me to the 30th century, where a Legion of Superheroes needed my help. They gave me a cure to my lead allergy, trained me some more, even gave me my suit.” He smirked and put his hands on his hips in her signature pose. “What do you think?”

The red flush that took over her face was all the answer he needed, that and the way her eyes trailed up and down his body. Twice.

“Pretty god…good!” Kara quickly corrected, closing her eyes in utter embarrassment.

But there was a rush of air and suddenly a gentle touch rested on her face. Her eyes shot open at how she’d FELT it, to see Mon-El before her, having sped to her, and touching her cheek with a hand, his other hand resting on one of her knees. 

“Don’t do that,” he whispered, staring at her intently.

“Do what?” she asked, her voice just as quiet.

“Look away,” he answered, his eyes searching hers. “I’ve dreamed of your eyes for two years…”

“Two years!?” She could almost feel her eyes filling with tears at that. With time travel at hand (and she had no reason to distrust him), he could have been in the future for decades before finding a way back to her. But even then, the idea that he’d been two years without her…she had barely held herself together for the two months he’d been gone.

“It was worth every agonizing second of it if it meant I could come back to you a hero like you deserve.”

Kara shook her head at that, reaching up to touch his face, cup his cheeks in both her hand, a thrill going through her at how she could FEEL his thumb stroking her cheekbone. Vowing silently she was never going to let him go, literally, she had craved his touch too much to stop touching him now nor let his hand leave her body either. “I don’t care about that.”

“I do,” he admitted, his voice clear but firm. Different than how he used to speak to her, as though he was never sure if his words would upset her or if he should be telling her something, sharing something with her. She could hear the change in him even in his voice, the two years had done him good even though it killed her to think of him without her that long. “I spent every minute I could training as hard as possible to be worthy of you, Kara Zor-El, Hero of Earth. I know Superheroes usually have Side-Kicks. But I don’t want to just stand with you, I want to stand beside you. As Valor. As your partner. If you’ll have me.”

Kara could feel the smile overtaking her face even before she realized she was doing it. “I don’t want a partner,” she told him, gently tugging his face a little closer so he’d know to let her finish speaking. “I want a mate.”

Because she’d finally asked him what a mate constituted on Daxam. It was a combination of everything. Like an Earth-wife, but so much more. It was a best friend, a spouse, a support, a partner, a soulmate, the other half of you, the owner of your heart, the only one you submitted to, the only one you would ever be loyal to, the one you would never move on from, a defender, a protector, your safety zone, your safe place…it was home.

Mon-El’s answering smile was all she needed to pull him that last bit of space and seal her lips with his.

Alex smiled as she watched her sister and Mon-El reunited…though the smile slowly started to fall, growing more into a grimace the longer her baby sister continued to kiss her mate(?), until she found herself slowly backing out of the room, not wanting to be scarred as they clearly got more and more into it, but not having the heart to tell them to knock it off.

…maybe she would send J’onn in there to do it instead…

**Author's Note:**

> I think I need some serious help, lol. These oneshot stories need to stop (but not really), they are taking over my life (in a good way). It's like they pop up and I NEED to write them down or they won't let me finish chapters in my other stories (but still, I like adding more fics to the Karamel tag). So here is another speculation of how Mon-El could return. Just out of the blue, as Valor, ready to save his girlfriend like she's saved him :-)
> 
> On a side note, this story has also given me an idea for a third AND A FOURTH multi-chapter story. But I'm not sure if I should start it or not. I'm tempted to, because I feel like it would be a really cool idea but at the same time, I've already got two other multi-chapter stories in progress. 
> 
> But, then again, with the hiatus, and with the Karamel tag being smaller than some, I feel like I channel Mon-El in saying "the more the merrier!" But at what point does "more" become "too much"? I wouldn't be able to update the stories as quickly if there are more of them, but there would be more of them lol. Idk, I'm going to keep up with Betrayal and History for the moment, I'll debate between adding more later though ;-)


End file.
